website connection glitch

I've been assured both by the company and by another user that the site is fine, but I have it as disfunctional. there's only one thing I can figure may have caused a glitch.
last night we left IE for FireFox to get access to a site we had to take a course from. after we finished for the evening we returned to IE. before we returned, however, I went to check a site, only to find it was scrambled. and it remained scrambled after we returned to IE, and after I shut down, and after I ran into a bottleneck with MajorGeeks, and after I shut down and rebooted. it just won't clear. and I don't understand technology (gives me migrains trying to understand it) so I don't know what to do to clear it.

now, before you give me the standard Tech. response, cookies are on and cache is empty. I've got the computer on auto daily defrag and it's Vista, 8, and covered with the most current full version of AVG. and it's clean. oh, and connection is clearwire. and the site is 23andme.com
all other 'net activity is normal, other than the bottleneck with MG, that happens when I've had the computer on all day, as I did today. shut down and reboot clears that up. but it doesn't clear up the issue with the site.
so, can you tell me how to clear the broken connection to this website? I can log in-sometimes. I can poke around the site, but I can't access my account, can write to the message board but can't send, can look in my mail box but what's there is jibberish, the messages are missing and instead there's a short line of about 12 letters in mixed upper and lower case. everything's out of sinc, as well. for instance if the normal setting is thumbnail, name, message, it shows as scrambled letters, thumbnail, name.

 

Is this happening in both browsers? Try looking under the View tab. For Firefox "Basic Page Style" should be selected and for IE under Style, "Default Style" should be selected. I'm not sure if this will solve your problem but it's worth a try. Also, if you want to see if this issue is isolated to just those two programs, then try looking at the site in another browser, like Google Chrome. If you still have the same problem, then there's definitely something more serious going on.

Have you tried running any anti-virus programs? Like Malwarebytes or SuperAntiSpyware? I know you said your PC is clean, but something may have snuck in.

 

today I signed onto the computer under my husband's account-like having a split drive, each account is completely seperate from the other, and I can't cross over and access files from the other account. so, I went to 23andme on his account, in FF, and got in just fine, everything worked normal. but in my account (which I am in now), 23andme is still just as scrambled as ever. no other site that I've visited in the past 3 days (since the glitch occured) has any problem. so I assume there's some twist in the connection, but how/why/where is beyond me. oh, and I'm in IE in my acct. but in my acct it doesn't work in FF, either. I haven't a clue what caused it.
well, I'll go check the view tabs and the other suggestions and if it is one of them I'll speak up, but with it being just one site, that doesn't seem to jibe-however, since I open multiple browsers, it could have some relevance.

 

Agreed: if it's not a specific browser issue, this is most likely a handshake-type problem - communication is screwy between the website's authentication routines and some file or files on your machine. You might try digging in, deleting everything having to do with the site (even in Windows Registry), and logging back in (which should replace anything deleted by you).

A quicker way, however, may be to contact the website and request a user and/or password reset. Might even try an end-around and have the site assign you a new user profile, circumvent any old user login issues.

If you do decide to contact the website's support, try to find out if they're using any IP address authentication - if so, you might try troubleshooting that angle.

 

er...I thought I knew where the view tab was, but I can't find it. I've gone through tools and page, with no further enlightenment-as everything appears to be set to default. and the settings are the same for sites that are working normally and for 23andme, so it isn't specialised to a seperate browser window. it's as though the site is left justified, only more than that. because I can't transfer my files between the accounts, I can't work with the data. unless there's some way to transfer the files unknown to us? please let me know. we are not geeks-well, I should rephrase that. ask my husband about basic and he will talk you to mind blearing oblivion about early Windows and preWindows. ask him about Vista and you might get a few sentences from him. he's old school geek. but I diverse. I've checked all the icons, the start list, the links, but I can't find the view tab anywhere. the problem must have something to do with my computer acct/profile/id, though what is beyond me. retrace...online, everything's ok. go to the website where we have to take the course, cannot log in. call the place, they say try another browser. we go from IE to FF, are able to log in, take part of the course, find a stopping point, I spend some time elsewhere on the computer, email, research, staying in FF-go to 23andme, it's mangled. leave FF, go to IE, go to 23andme, it's mangled. shut computer down, reboot, go to 23andme in IE, it's mangled. go to FF and check at some later point. 23andme still mangled. shut down, go to bed, get up, boot computer, go to 23andme, it's mangled. husband suggests checking it on his acct. and 23andme is fine, I can work in it, no problems. go back to my acct., 23andme is mangled. so the issue is somewhere/somehow with my acct., and only with 23andme's interaction with my acct-or visa versa, but either way, it's somewhere in the connection. could my ISP correct it? or do I have to dive into a place so alien to me I can barely function in it. doesn't seem to be the ISP's problem. certainly isn't the website's problem, and it isn't a problem with any other website. very perplexing.

 

Xspankyx, I have spybot on autorun. it's showing clean, though it's blocked thousands of sites. don't believe it's blocking this one, since I can bring it up, just isn't reading or running right. you are right, things can slip through, but I feel fairly (read, not 100%, but enough) secure with full AVG and spybot-and I think the malware cleaner's on the computer, as well, can't think of it's name. something-clean or something-wipe?

Caliban, I did contact 23andme, they verified their site was fine, but have not continued further discussions. and no-one else is having issues, there's an off-site chat group that is in essence part of it, and I brought it up there, I'm the only one with a tech issue. I tend to draw tech problems to myself, poltergeist style, lol. don't let me near your machines! lol...sigh.

the sad thing is, under tools is an unhighlighted (and a mystery as to how to access) "diagnose connection problems". well, perhaps it's just for general internet connection, but it is beyond me why this isn't accessable-or MS update's window having an unaccessable postpone button. neither make sense, and the very fact of them being there but unaccessable is insane. why have them if they can't be used? grumble....

 

The 'Diagnose, etc.' is probably not highlighted because, as far as IE's concerned, there is no problem. The Postpone Update button is bothering me, though - what operating system and service pack # (and IE / Firefox versions) are you running?

 

Vista. IE. version 8 (or 9, I forget which is most current). once or twice a month, MS does an update, and a little window pops up, says MS update, computer needs to shut down, shutting down in 12(?) minutes. there's two buttons if I recall, one says to delay the shut down for various lengths of time (I assume). that button may have been accessable on the first shutdown (I may be remembering another system that also has a delay button), but it's never worked since. just grey'd out, so I can read it, but not use it. I don't do fancy stuff with this computer, just get my emails, shop, research my ancestry, occasionally drop into online dictionaries, and stay away from the bad sites (not interested, don't care). I don't suspect another website to have caused the problem, more focused on an issue between 23andme and FF, but Thursday's history is fairly standard for me-a few sites new to me, a few I rarely visit, and my regulars-my internet email box, my ISP, a financial website (the course we're taking), 3 dna testing sites I visit regularly, Facebook, google.com, Icanhascheeseburger.com, lostcousins.com, craigslist, England's national archives, thehungersite.com, Australia's archives, my church's website, Webby, and Wunderground weather. Australia's archives is brand new, and although I went there it ended up that I was otherwise occupied and didn't get to poke around in it. some days I'm all over the web, ebay, amazon, Rootsweb, Ancestry, etc., but the course and the glitch kept my leash short that day.

 

Hmm, I just saw on a later post that you have Vista. I have very little experience with that O/S (quite possibly it's the worst one MS has made..) so I don't know what they could have changed for IE. I don't even use IE on my W7 laptop.

It is very confusing that your husband's account works fine. This is out of my league lol. My thing is cleaning up PCs from malware and I've dealt with similar problems to yours but not to this degree (i.e. one account was blocked from accessing the internet by a virus). I just find it fishy that this is all isolated to one account. Is your husband's account listed as administrator? I had one case where a severe malware infection in one account originated from the administrator one, even though the latter wasn't affected. Perhaps you should try running some of those anit-malware scans on your husband's account and see if anything comes up.

Another thing: how recently did your PC do an update? I tend to hold off on those because sometimes they can screw things up. If it coincides with this problem you're having you may have found the culprit.

 

hmm. my husband doesn't like Vista, but he despises Win7-and the half screen computer he bought last summer. for one, he's familiar with the early OS's and loved the hands on use of them-still has and uses a 385. uses the Win7, too, and swears under his breath. how do you enlarge tiny print to where it's readable but doesn't loose the webpage? or even enlarge it to larger than the print size below this window? he's got replacement lenses and diabetic eyes, and it's way too small for him to read. as if everyone has 20/20 eyesight. sheesh.
ok, off my soapbox.
you may have a point. I didn't pay attention to when/if the monthly update has been done, though I suspect it hasn't-is there a place where the history of updates are available? if so then I could check. if it has, then perhaps it is the reason, though why it would effect the one site and not any other doesn't make sense.
yes, I believe he has administrator for his own acct, mine is probably secondary.
the scans are on auto-pilot, start at noon every day. come up clean. however, if there's a history on the scans somewhere on my computer, direct me to it.

 

well, today (Oct 13) was the day MS decided to update. just finished and got everything back up. the problem still remains. so I guess I will, from this day forth, have to devide the drive and work from my husband's account to access 23andme, unless a geek knows the trick to correcting it. the thing is, with only one site with an issue, it isn't a malware problem. they don't play that sort of game-they get in, reek havoc across the board, no light touch with them. so there's a communication linkage glitch, but if the site refuses to communicate with me regarding this issue, I'm stuck where I am. if it's on my end, wouldn't it be effecting other sites?

 

I actually took the liberty of looking at that site from all three browsers on my PC (Chrome, Firefox, IE) and it worked fine in all three of them. I believe you mentioned it before, but I see now that there is clearly something wrong with your account. Since IE is an O/S application, it shows up the same in your husband's account & if there was something wrong with it, it wouldn't be working on his either. I am honestly unsure what has happened. By chance, do you have firewall software on both your accounts? You mentioned AVG and Spybot, but I didn't see you mention firewall software. That's the only thing I can think of that MIGHT cause the crazy html mix-up. If you do have it, try turning it off. Either that or try flushing the IE cache again and removing all cookies. Can you take a screen shot of it and post? Maybe if someone can see it they'll recognize what the problem is!

Other than that, the only other thing that makes sense is what Caliban was talking about. Delete anything on your laptop having to do with the site. I'm just finding it weird that this is only happening on your account and not the admin one. Do you remember what you initially did before all this happened?

 

they did finally get back to me, and showed me a very interesting thing. I've had some glitches with other sites on other computers, talked with the web owner and no-one has ever shown me this. they sent me to a webpage on their website that gives all the data on my computer. on my account, some of the data is missing (very peculiar!) and it looks like this-btw, I can't add from his account while I'm in mine, so I'll send his acct data in another post. nothing personal's in the data, just which OS, which package version, about the cookies, etc.
from my acct;

Logged In?False

IP Address:75.95.160.69

Handling Server:web01-03.www.23andme.net

JavaScript Enabled:True

Browser:

Browser Codename:

Browser Version:

Screen Depth:

Screen Width:

Screen Height:

Flash Version:

Accept-Language:en-us

Cookie Names:

I didn't erase what isn't there, it's just not there. doesn't come up at all. that's weird because everythings filled in. just in case, where do I go to turn cookies on if the kitten turned them off?
as for my firewall, that's included with my AVG package. just forgot to mention it is all.

 

here's the data from my husband's acct with it being IE run in Mozilla FireFox;

Logged In?False

IP Address:75.95.160.69

Handling Server:web01-03.www.23andme.net

JavaScript Enabled:True

Browser:Microsoft Internet Explorer

Browser Codename:Mozilla

Browser Version:4.0 (compatible; MSIE 7.0; Windows NT 6.0; WOW64; SLCC1; .NET CLR 2.0.50727; Media Center PC 5.0; .NET CLR 3.5.30729; .NET CLR 3.0.30618; .NET4.0C)

Screen Depth:32

Screen Width:1680

Screen Height:1050

Flash Version:Not installed/activated

Accept-Language:en-us

Cookie Names:username, vs, ab, NSC_xxx-wjq-ttm-gps-dtx, __utma, __utmz, __utmx, __utmxx, __utmv, __utmb, __utmc

quite a bit of difference, isn't it?

 

of course, that's Mozilla's browser version, but the IE browser version is which ever is most current, 8 or 9. I don't deal well with numbers, so I remember vital ones after a fashion and let things like computer slide right by.

 

Looks like part of your problem is that your browser's User Agent is switched off or not being picked up when accessing https sites.

 

it's just the one site. where do I go to switch the browser agent on?

 

You mentioned Mozilla earlier, try this.

Be warned however, many add-ons, security programs and Windows 'tweaks' may cause or complicate this issue.

 

thank you, it works fine in Mozilla, it's IE that has the glitch. at least, the glitch shows up in IE and not in Mozilla, so I assume that is the case. I don't know if I have any add-ons, not being certain what they are, have never had issues with AVG and though I do have automatic updates from MS in IE, it has only effected this one site.

 

There's this addon for IE8.